Tuesday, May 29, 2012

You are behind your target pace

In a fit of insanity and frustration, I signed my husband and myself up for the Too Hot to Handle 15K in Dallas in July. I really wanted to sign up for another race and wanted something longer than a 5K but shorter than a half marathon. I wasn't finding anything that really appealed, and was getting frustrated, so I asked my husband if he'd do this one and when he agreed I signed us both up. Now I have to get back into training for a long race right when temperatures are reliably in the 90s every day!

So I went for a run last night. I was really disappointed in my half marathon and know that it was because I was not training consistently enough or hard enough. I'm going to have to work a lot harder if I want to run well in this race. My first training run was not a stellar success. I intended to go 4 miles, but wimped out at just over 3. Actually, I wimped out before I even hit 2 miles, and had to walk for a bit. I decided at the end of the run that that was the last wimpy run I get to do before this race. If I need to stop and walk during a run that's fine, but I will not quit when I am short on miles. I will run or walk the full distance every time.

I had wanted to work on my pace, because I know I can do 10 minute miles if I work on it. Yes, I know, I'm slow. Shut up. A 10 minute mile is a good fast-ish pace for me, and I'll be ridiculously happy with myself when I manage to keep it up for five miles.

Anyway. I was playing around with the runkeeper app again, and thought I'd try out the coaching. I don't know what I was expecting, but I was not impressed with what it was. I selected a 10 min/mile pace, and so every time an audio cue came on for time or distance, the voice would say in a very mean sounding way "you are behind your target pace by" however much per mile. But really, no shit Sherlock. The same voice just told me, in a much more pleasant manner, my average pace and current pace. I think I'd rather have a voice that alerted me every time I was over/under my target pace by more than 30 seconds/mile or something. I just hope I remember to turn off the coaching before my next run.